


Silver Struck at Christmas, Sounding More Like Gold

by MistyBeethoven



Category: Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Smut, Christmas Special, Detectives, F/M, Flutes, Love, Love Stories, Music, Musical Instruments, Oral Sex, Salvation Army Band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: When Poirot enlists the help of his friends to help catch a thief targeting the crowds that stop to listen to the Christmas Salvation Army band, Captain Arthur Hastings finds himself embarrassed by the Belgian detective's choice of a musical instrument for him: a triangle.If there is one bright side, however, it is watching fellow co-worker, Miss Felicity Lemon, play the flute.After Poirot loses his temper yet again, Miss Lemon finds a way to cheer and heat the good Captain up!
Relationships: Arthur Hastings & Felicity Lemon & Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings/Felicity Lemon, James Japp & Hercule Poirot
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Silver Struck at Christmas, Sounding More Like Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mosriteluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosriteluv/gifts).



> For my sister (he best one in the world,) a Christmas Hastings/Lemon story! Partly inspired by the holiday Mr. Bean special.

Standing out in the cold, surrounded by a group of people all standing about and staring at him with amusement in their eyes on a chilly December night, very very close to Christmas, Captain Arthur Hastings wondered how he had ever managed to get himself into such a confounded mess.

It wasn't that he did not want to help his employer and very dear friend, Hercule Poirot. On the contrary, he looked forward to being the legman for the renowned detective, searching for clues and interviewing the suspects and witnesses, especially if they were female and rather on the pretty side. The problem was the _nature_ of this particular act of assistance.

He had no use for the cold and that he had to spend the nights before Christmas out in it being laughed at in no way increased his affection.

But that was what he had agreed to.

And at least he had company.

Poirot had also enlisted his friend Chief Inspector Japp to come out and take part in the ruse. But, at least, the detective had the good fortune of having been given an instrument with some dignity. When Japp blew into the tuba, the onlookers didn't point and stare and eventually giggle.

Miss Lemon too had been bestowed the blessing of having learned to play the flute in her youth. She'd stand to the side playing it so prettily that the crowd would clap and be in wonder.

It was when they came to him that the people surrounding them all's faces would crack into smiles or would that they would outright burst into laughter.

Who could blame them, Arthur Hasting sadly and silently fumed, as he performed the one task Poirot had entrusted him with:

to hit the silver triangle with the small wooden stick at the end of each song.

* * *

It had been five days since Poirot had first approached them to secure their aid in his latest case.

There had been a rash of thefts at the street corners where the Salvation Army band had been choosing to play. The leader of the band was at his wits end and attendance and donations were dwindling due to the news sweeping that if you were to even stop and listen to a single note you ran the risk of returning home without your wallet or short of a few pounds. Hercule had explained his plan then to Hastings while he had been sitting on the settee with Miss Lemon standing to his left.

"Japp has promised to become a part of a _faux_ band to be present to apprehend _c'est_ villian. I request your help to Miss Lemon and Captain Hastings: you shall join the band as well," Poirot had informed.

"Certainly, Mr. Poirot," Miss Lemon consented.

"Count me in too," Arthur agreed. "But what do you plan to do while this is all going on?"

"I will become the _conducteur_ and find the culprit," the small man declared proudly.

"It sounds jolly good," Hastings had remarked, "but have you ever conducted before?"

Poirot had smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. " _Oui_...for the band at _l'ecole_ I _attendez_."

"Oh," the Captain had stated. "That's all right then. Besides it's not like it needs _real_ talent or anything to wave a stick around."

Miss Lemon had instantly looked down at him and scowled in warning and Arthur had known he had gone and put his foot in his mouth again. Turning his gaze to Poirot, he saw the man bristling, looking so much in his black suit like one of those sketches of a round cartoon bombs about to explode that Arthur Hastings would have found it comical if he wasn't so damn frightened.

"It is called a _baton_ , Hastings, not a _stick_ and everything takes an amount of _skill_ ," Hercule Poirot snapped. "It takes an inordinate amount of _skill_ to conduct an orchestra."

Then Hastings found himself putting his other foot right in beside the other. "I wouldn't call a Salvation Army band an orchestra, especially with a police inspector, an old Captain and a secretary being led by a man who last waved a _baton_ when he still had hair."

Maybe _that_ was when Poirot had decided to get his quiet revenge by giving him the damn triangle to hit.

* * *

Now, five days later, they were still out on the street every night playing Christmas Carols that never sounded altogether good but were far from absolutely horrid to repel the passing Christmas shoppers. Many of them stopped to listen, despite the warnings of the Five Fingered Holiday Gift Taker. Perhaps it was the out of tune music which drew them or the fact that they believed that it was safer to crowd around a poor sounding band then a highly skilled one.

In any case, Hastings had found out two things:

No matter how fancy and graceful Poirot moved his baton in the air it could not turn a ragtag imposter Sally Ann band into the real thing.

And that he quite enjoyed watching Miss Lemon play the flute.

Listening to the pretty sound of her playing "Silent Night" or "In the Bleak Midwinter," and waiting until he struck the confounded triangle and made the crowd giggle, Hastings would watch the woman, with her slender gloved fingers moving on the holes and her mouth blowing and pressing against the wind instrument's head and find himself quite moved.

In more ways then one.

He'd never noticed how nice her lips were really. But seeing them going to work on the flute was giving him all sorts of naughty thoughts to help keep him warm, although they were liable to make it so that Father Christmas would stay very far away from his house Christmas Eve night.

He thought of what the little secretary would do with something far more warm and fleshy in her pretty little mouth and would find it becoming quite hot even though it was very, very chilly out.

Hastings just hoped that nobody noticed just how hot he was becoming, praying for once that everyone would be too busy waiting for him to strike the triangle that the own peak in the front of his trousers would go by unnoticed.

At the start of the fifth night, it seemed, though, that the efficient and proper secretary, with the immaculate filing system and the lamentable typewriter was becoming tired of the whole ruse.

"It isn't working!" Miss Lemon stated in irritation. "I have things I need to do before the 25th, Mr Poirot, and my lips are getting chapped from the coldness of the damn flute!"

For the woman to use such language all three men knew that she must really be upset.

Hastings agreed with her sentiment, although the thought of watching her not working the piece of long, hard metal every night disappointed him. "We are rather miserable sounding," the Captain exclaimed. "We draw a crowd and not in the good way. I take it the thief hears the racket a mile away and won't suspect anybody would actually come near us themselves, so he doesn't bother to either."

"But people do, Hastings," Poirot chided. "And when the villian realizes it, he will come too."

The little Belgian detective then had minced over to Japp, whom was studying his shiny brass Tuba with interest.

"Is there a problem, Chief Inspector?" Poirot asked primly.

The much larger and gruff man looked down at the heavy instrument again and then back at the detective.

"No, not really. It's just that this reminds me of you, Poirot," Japp stated with a wry smile below his thick moustache. "It's short, big and round."

The Belgian detective glared at his friend and proceeded to storm off, Japp following after him to tease him some more, finally finding an area where he could, at last, best the diminuitive detective.

"I'm really very sorry about your lips," Arthur Hastings told Felicity Lemon as they walked towards their place on the street corner. It was an almost abandoned place, filled with closed shops that had gone out of business.

"Are you?" she asked, holding the flute in her gloved hands.

"Oh yes," he replied. "I've been noticing what a good player you are. Pity you didn't go into the BSO or the likes "

She cocked an eyebrow. "That's awful kind of you, Captain. I thought you wouldn't notice such a thing."

"Really? Why?"

She looked down at the street, covered in snow resembling the white powder on the French pastries that their mutual employer liked to consume. "Because you hardly take note of me at all. Especially when there is someone more glamorous about."

The words hit him to the core as the little woman swiftly walked ahead of him. Hastings suddenly felt like a triangle himself, struck by a far larger more cruel stick. It was obvious by her tone and observance that the fact he had not paid her the attention that she desired had upset her. Pouting, the man looked down at the footprints she had made in the fine, fresh snow and fell into the formation of the band, hating the moment that Poirot began to conduct them, the Belgian picturing himself more brilliant than Leopold Stokowski.

Throughout the performance, Arthur found himself still casting glance after glance at Miss Lemon and her mouth's manipulation of the flute. She looked at him once, her eyes big and blue, the instrument between her lips and he quickly pictured it being his member instead of the flute, causing him to prematurely hit the triangle.

" _ZUT_!" Poirot said in anger as the crowd tittered. "Break! Break! I must regain _mon_ concentration!"

Japp looked very happy about this turn of events while the Captain frowned and then walked away, pushing his way through the small crowd so he could find a place to collect his thoughts in peace in the sheltered doorway of one of the abandoned stores. It was far enough away from the corner to allow him some privacy, yet close enough to hear when Poirot required him again.

For one small tap on a silver triangle, that lamentably was.

He thought he was alone until he caught the sight of a bit of movement and saw that Miss Lemon had followed him.

"Are you all right, Captain Hastings?" she asked in a tone both reserved yet kind.

"Oh, yes, quite all right," he stated but then shook his head. "No, I'm not. I'm feeling rather down actually."

"Any particular reason?" the redhead asked as she stepped closer.

Arthur opened his mouth and then shut it, only to open it quite quickly again to say, "I feel like an idiot standing there each night with that stupid triangle!"

The secretary broke into a wide grin she couldn't help and the Captain remarked, "See! There! You can't help but laugh at me either."

"It's your expression," she defended. "You look so lost and embarrassed everytime you have to hit it. And he has you hitting it at the _worst_ time."

"I really went and put my foot in it," Captain Arthur Hastings groaned. "I upset the old boy with those comments about his baton and that was his passive form of revenge: giving me a small piece of wood to hit a bloody triangle with."

Eyeing him up and down in his army uniform, Miss Lemon suddenly took a step forward. "He just is jealous," she stated, placing her now naked hand on his jacket.

"Jealous of what?" Hastings inquired, confused but liking her closeness and warmth.

"He's jealous of what you have... Men who have to wave long sticks around, I have heard it sometimes said, are usually over compensating for their own shortcomings."

After the observation, Lemon let her hand fall down his body like a gentle snowflake until it landed on the bulge at the front of his trousers, a bulge that grew from the heat of her hand and the masterful stroking it bestowed.

"Miss Lemon!" Captain Arthur Hastings stated in shock but then lowered his voice at the fear of being overheard.

"Yes, see," she said, outright fondling the concealed cock now, her fingers carefully gauging its length and width. "Your real stick is so very long and so very thick...not at all like the little piece of wood that he gave you.

"Felicity," Arthur groaned, feeling his penis stirring, unlike the proverbial mouse. "We shouldn't! Poirot will be calling us back soon."

The reasoning was obscured by the huskiness of his voice that travelled straight up from the stiffening cock, as if his throat was covered in his lust.

"I need to warm my lips," Felicity Lemon said, falling closer to him, those same lips less than a third of an inch from his, her voice smokey and her breath very hot. "Won't you help me warm my lips, Captain Hastings?"

He pushed his lips into hers in consent, a kiss that was as warm as the night was cold around them. Lasting several seconds, the secretary and he parted to breath. But while he wished to resume the liplock, her hand still teasing his grateful cock, Miss Lemon held other ideas it seemed.

"You've been watching me with my flute," she purred like one of the cats she owned, her body now descending on his own, just as her hand had snowed down on it before.

Her hands fidgeted with the opening to his trousers while she fell to her knees in front of him.

"My lips are so _cold_ ," Miss Lemon suddenly stated pulling out his cock. It was reddening now and almost fully erect despite the coldness of the night and while he knew he should feel embarrased, seeing it in her fingers, so contrastingly white, the Captain was too aroused to protest or feel shame.

She held the head of the penis, so very much like the head of a mushroom, before her painted lips and continued "I really must warm them up on something very very warm..."

Hastings shivered from the feeling of her breath on his manhood now, warm as springtime. When she put her lips on his flesh, that twitched in response it, it was as hot as summer, the moistness of her mouth like the warm, sun heated surface of an ocean.

He moaned as she tightened and then loosened her lips on his pulsating cock, her tongue tasting his hole and eating whatever was coming from it.

Urged forward by the drizzle of precum, the secretary let her tongue rub the underbelly of the beast then, taking him in further and letting her cheeks plump out with the swollen organ. Seeing and feeling her fellating him, watching her eyes closed and in rapture, as if she were sampling something especially tasty this Christmastime, Arthur Hastings was suddenly happy that he had placed his foot in his mouth if it had led to this marvelous moment of Miss Felicity Lemon placing another part of his anatomy in hers!

Still, he had to be sure that she wanted to do this. "You...you don't gave to do this Felicity dear," he stated, his voice hitching as she brought a new movement of lips, tongue and mouth upon him.

"Whomever said that I wouldn't want to, Arthur darling," she returned, slipping her lips sensuously off of him. "I've wanted to do this for so long...to have you in my mouth...but you were always too busy noticing every other girl and never me."

"I noticed you," he replied roughly, wanting the small talk over with and desiring her to once more place her mouth on him. "But you were too busy noticing Poirot! Why else do you think I was always in your office?"

"You mean I wasn't just one of the other men to you?" Felicity exclaimed, her eyes widening and some of his precum falling down from the corner of her mouth.

"Good lord no!" he exclaimed. "Poirot was there if I wanted that type of conversation. I wanted to share my interests and hobbies with you."

She looked up at him and smiled prettily, before staring hungrily at his still angry penis. "And here I was hoping that you'd share something else with me," she exclaimed brazenly before feasting on his penis once more.

His head falling back, Arthur stood and enjoyed her oral machinations, now joined by the pumping of her hand. Her lips moved up and down on his penis, playing it as skilfully as she did the flute and making it come alive just like her instrument. He was so much in bliss he failed to hear Poirot beginning to call for the return of his two missing band members. Neither did Miss Lemon whom was far too busy with a different kind of member.

"I think I'm..." the Captain exclaimed, feeling his balls tightening.

His lover intensified her work and both still did not notice that the sound of a lonely tuba had started. Suddenly Arthur Hastings was shooting off inside of the little secretary's mouth,her eyes widening in delighted surprise at how much he was giving her to swallow.

The tuba was sounding out, playing Jingle Bells, while Hastings jiggly balls were getting to release their bit of yuletide cheer into Miss Lemon's waiting mouth and throat. It was only when his spilling had finished that both of Hercule Poirot's employees heard the rucus on the street corner and how the music had suddenly stopped. They looked at one another in sexy and satisfied confusion for a second, before Hastings realized something was happening. "Come on," he ordered, putting his spent cock safely away and pulling Miss Lemon to her feet.

They rushed to the street corner and saw that Chief Inspector Japp was on the ground wrestling with his tuba which had seemingly come to life! There was a body and a pair of feet coming out of the top, kicking, while Japp had its arms pinned. "Someone get my bloody cuffs out of my pocket and cuff the bloody bastard!" Japp ordered and Hastings rushed immediately to help, Poirot standing there and looking too surprised to be very good at following instructions.

"What happened?" Felicity asked, her voice garbled as she stood beside an embarrassed looking Poirot.

"Our thief finally made his move," Japp stated, the cuffs finally going on the fighting mad tuba. "I apprehended him while our dear _conductor_ was so busy waving his stick about with his eyes shut he didn't see a bloody thing."

"That was Poirot's plot all along," the detective argued testily. "I knew the Chief Inspector could handle things by himself."

Japp rolled his eryes while Hastings removed the tubby wind instrument off of the guilty party's head. It turned out he was a very short man, in his early fifties and of about four feet five inches.

The Belgian detective minced forward and glared at the villian, whom was even shorter of stature than he was. "But what I do not know is why _now_? Why revert to your ways now? You have been with us all this time..."

The thief snarled looking at Hastings, whom had bent over to pick up his triangle and stick, which had wound up on the ground in the scuffle. "It was him. He was so amusing with that triangle. Pure gee-ni-us. I found meself just waiting for it. The big fool with the tuba just playing and you, you pompous frog with the stick, wavin' 'er about all of time...wells I got bored."

Miss Lemon strolled up to Captain Hastings and took his arm. "See Arthur? You were the star..."

Arthur smiled happily, knowing that he had been entertaining enough to keep a thief from sinning.

He looked across now, however, at Poirot, whom now seemed very upset. Japp noticed it too and asked, "What for, Poirot? We caught the villian. Why the long face?"

"I do not know what to do now...I have to apologize, Hastings, _mon ami,_ " the Belgian stated, eyeing his close friend in regret. "I have been short of temper this year. I miss my Belgium whenever Christmas comes..."

"It's all right," the Captain said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and feeling Miss Lemon link her arm in his. "You're homesick. Perfectly understandable."

"Look here," Japp suddenly piped up. "Why don't you come and stay at my place?"

Poirot flinched, fond of Japp but not exactly so concerning the Inspector's culinary skills.

Then the man added, "Emily has taken it into her head to do a French themed Christmas meal this year...I know you aren't French," Japp said, casting a glare to the Five Fingered Holiday Taker, "but any supervision you could give would be appreciated."

Poirot glowed proudly. " _Oui_! I would be honored!"

Lemon and Hastings looked at each other, well aware that their friend was exchanging his baton for a ladle now and pitying Emily Japp.

"How touching," the thief said in deep sarcasm before Japp dragged him away, Poirot close on their heels.

"So how about it," Arthur Hastings stated, grabbing Felicity Lemon by the waist, his triangle and stick still in hand. "You want to share a good old-fashioned _British_ Christmas dinner with me?"

The tiny woman looked up at him with the lips he had admired for close to a week and had finally received his much hoped for Christmas wish to experience. "Just as long as you're on the menu!" she exclaimed, stepping on her tiptoes to kiss him.

Following the locking of their lips, Arthur Hastings could only do one thing: he let go of Miss Lemon and hit the silver triangle, the action making her laugh. Arthur Hastings marvelled at it then too, a sound far more clear and beautiful than struck silver and as warm as the pretty little mouth it had come from.


End file.
